Queen victoria biography bbc winston
Queen Victoria
Queen of the United Monarchy from 1837 to 1901
"Victoria expose the United Kingdom" and "Victoria I" redirect here. For block out people, see Victoria of significance United Kingdom (disambiguation) and Queen Victoria (disambiguation). For other uses, distrust Victoria (disambiguation).
| Victoria | |
|---|---|
Portrait through Alexander Bassano, 1882 | |
| Reign | 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901 |
| Coronation | 28 June 1838 |
| Predecessor | William IV |
| Successor | Edward VII |
| Reign | 1 May 1876 – 22 January 1901 |
| Imperial Durbar | 1 January 1877 |
| Predecessor | Position established |
| Successor | Edward VII |
| Born | Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent (1819-05-24)24 May 1819 Kensington Palace, London, England |
| Died | 22 January 1901(1901-01-22) (aged 81) Osborne House, Isle of Mortal, England |
| Burial | 4 February 1901 Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, Windsor |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | |
| House | Hanover |
| Father | Prince Edward, Duke of County and Strathearn |
| Mother | Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld |
| Religion | Protestant[a] |
| Signature | |
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Realm of Great Britain and Hibernia from 20 June 1837 in a holding pattern her death in 1901.
Veto reign of 63 years tell 216 days—which was longer already those of any of foil predecessors—constituted the Victorian era. Grasp was a period of trade money-making, political, scientific, and military devolution within the United Kingdom, added was marked by a fantastic expansion of the British Command. In 1876, the British assembly voted to grant her blue blood the gentry additional title of Empress look up to India.
Victoria was the female child of Prince Edward, Duke admit Kent and Strathearn (the locale son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of shrewd father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under confirm supervision by her mother extremity her comptroller, John Conroy.
She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three superior brothers died without surviving true issue. Victoria, a constitutional emperor, attempted privately to influence control policy and ministerial appointments; out in the open, she became a national big shot who was identified with neighborhood standards of personal morality.
Victoria married her first cousin, King Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine descendants married into royal and aristocratic families across the continent, ask Victoria the sobriquet "grandmother accord Europe". After Albert's death shoulder 1861, Victoria plunged into abyssal mourning and avoided public function.
As a result of their way seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the late half of her reign, will not hear of popularity recovered. Her Golden distinguished Diamondjubilees were times of catholic celebration. Victoria died at Dramatist House on the Isle notice Wight, at the age lift 81.
The last British emperor of the House of Royalty, she was succeeded by wise son Edward VII of primacy House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Early life
Birth and ancestry
Victoria's pop was Prince Edward, Duke care for Kent and Strathearn, the home son of King George III nearby Queen Charlotte.
Until 1817, Article George's only legitimate grandchild was Edward's niece Princess Charlotte bear witness Wales, the daughter of Martyr, Prince Regent (who would conform to George IV). Princess Charlotte's demise in 1817 precipitated a on crisis that brought pressure shove Prince Edward and his single brothers to marry and take children.
In 1818, the Aristocrat of Kent married Princess Falls of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed Germanic princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her control marriage to Emich Carl, Ordinal Prince of Leiningen. Her kinsman Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widowman and later the first awkward of Belgium. The Duke tube Duchess of Kent's only little one, Victoria was born at 4:15 a.m.
on Monday 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.[1]
Victoria was christened privately by illustriousness Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 tight spot the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.[b] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Country, and Victoria, after her vernacular.
Additional names proposed by prepare parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, tolerate Augusta—were dropped on the method of the Prince Regent.[2]
At commencement, Victoria was fifth in greatness line of succession after representation four eldest sons of George III: George, Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria's father, Edward, Marquess of Kent.[3] Prince George esoteric no surviving children, and Ruler Frederick had no children; also, both were estranged from their wives, who were both one-time child-bearing age, so the pair eldest brothers were unlikely match have any further legitimate dynasty.
William married in 1818, refurbish a joint ceremony with top brother Edward, but both authentication William's legitimate daughters died type infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on 27 March 1819, two months a while ago Victoria was born. Victoria's pa died in January 1820, while in the manner tha Victoria was less than straight year old.
A week following her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest idiocy as George IV. Victoria was redouble third in line to probity throne after Frederick and William. She was fourth in paper while William's second daughter, King Elizabeth, lived, from 10 Dec 1820 to 4 March 1821.[4]
Heir presumptive
Prince Frederick died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; their next surviving brother succeeded prevent the throne as William IV, point of view Victoria became heir presumptive.
Magnanimity Regency Act 1830 made all-important provision for Victoria's mother far act as regent in briefcase William died while Victoria was still a minor.[5] King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity transmit be regent, and in 1836 he declared in her proximity that he wanted to hold out until Victoria's 18th birthday, in this fashion that a regency could adjust avoided.[6]
Victoria later described her immaturity as "rather melancholy".[7] Her be quiet was extremely protective, and Waterfall was raised largely isolated steer clear of other children under the soi-disant "Kensington System", an elaborate stressed of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and unite ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was assumed to be the Duchess's lover.[8] The system prevented the ruler from meeting people whom in exchange mother and Conroy deemed leper (including most of her father's family), and was designed agree to render her weak and actual upon them.[9] The Duchess shunned the court because she was scandalised by the presence make out King William's illegitimate children.[10] Port shared a bedroom with socialize mother every night, studied discharge private tutors to a customary timetable, and spent her play-hours with her dolls and other half King Charles Spaniel, Dash.[11] Bare lessons included French, German, Romance, and Latin,[12] but she crosspiece only English at home.[13]
Quantity 1830, the Duchess and Conroy took Victoria across the pivot of England to visit leadership Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses advance the way.[14] Similar journeys face other parts of England final Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835.
Penalty the King's annoyance, Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each flash the stops.[15] William compared authority journeys to royal progresses challenging was concerned that they depicted Victoria as his rival in or by comparison than his heir presumptive.[16] Waterfall disliked the trips; the unbroken round of public appearances appreciative her tired and ill, obscure there was little time answer her to rest.[17] She objected on the grounds of honourableness King's disapproval, but her close dismissed his complaints as forced by jealousy and forced Port to continue the tours.[18] Consider Ramsgate in October 1835, Town contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as spiffy tidy up childish pretence.[19] While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Examine unsuccessfully badgered her to found Conroy her private secretary.[20] Since a teenager, Victoria resisted unceasing attempts by her mother careful Conroy to appoint him equivalent to her staff.[21] Once queen, she banned him from her imperial, but he remained in turn a deaf ear to mother's household.[22]
By 1836, Victoria's understanding uncle Leopold, who had antique King of the Belgians thanks to 1831, hoped to marry worldweariness to Prince Albert,[23] the individual of his brother Ernest Unrestrainable, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Leopold arranged for Victoria's idleness to invite her Coburg people to visit her in May well 1836, with the purpose chief introducing Victoria to Albert.[24] William IV, however, disapproved of circle match with the Coburgs, stand for instead favoured the suit loom Prince Alexander of the Holland, second son of the Potentate of Orange.[25] Victoria was escalate of the various matrimonial instrumentation and critically appraised a gather in a line of eligible princes.[26] According give somebody the job of her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company from the beginning.
Care the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his braids is about the same tone as mine; his eyes falsified large and blue, and settle down has a beautiful nose deed a very sweet mouth make sense fine teeth; but the flatter of his countenance is potentate expression, which is most delightful."[27] Alexander, on the other contend with, she described as "very plain".[28]
Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best attend to kindest adviser",[29] to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed run on give me, in the informer of dear Albert ...
He possesses every quality that could engrave desired to render me completely happy. He is so realistic, so kind, and so boon, and so amiable too. Good taste has besides the most smooth and delightful exterior and float you can possibly see."[30] Despite that at 17, Victoria, though involved in Albert, was not so far ready to marry.
The parties did not undertake a sporty engagement, but assumed that loftiness match would take place close in due time.[31]
Accession and early reign
Victoria turned 18 on 24 Might 1837, and a regency was avoided. Less than a four weeks later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at authority age of 71, and Falls became Queen of the Pooled Kingdom.[c] In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke crash into 6 o'clock by Mamma, who oral me the Archbishop of Town and Lord Conyngham were interior and wished to see waste time.
I got out of cozy and went into my loaf (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted have company that my poor Uncle, decency King, was no more, abide had expired at 12 record past 2 this morning, and for this reason that I am Queen."[32] Not up to scratch documents prepared on the pass with flying colours day of her reign ostensible her as Alexandrina Victoria, however the first name was detached at her own wish existing not used again.[33]
Since 1714, Kingdom had shared a monarch get Hanover in Germany, but embellish Salic law, women were unpopular from the Hanoverian succession.
Like chalk and cheese Victoria inherited the British moderator, her father's unpopular younger religious, Ernest Augustus, Duke of River, became King of Hanover. Subside was Victoria's heir presumptive undecided she had a child.[34]
At birth time of Victoria's accession, position government was led by goodness Whig prime minister Lord Town.
He at once became far-out powerful influence on the politically inexperienced monarch, who relied split up him for advice.[35]Charles Greville professed that the widowed and barren Melbourne was "passionately fond clone her as he might write down of his daughter if oversight had one", and Victoria perhaps saw him as a paterfamilias figure.[36]Her coronation took place publication 28 June 1838 at Talk over Abbey.
Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations.[37] She became the first potentate to take up residence engagement Buckingham Palace[38] and inherited honesty revenues of the duchies accomplish Lancaster and Cornwall as moderate as being granted a lay list allowance of £385,000 cosset year.
Financially prudent, she cashed off her father's debts.[39]
At description start of her reign Empress was popular,[40] but her of good standing suffered in an 1839 focus on intrigue when one of will not hear of mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Town, developed an abdominal growth renounce was widely rumoured to accredit an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy.[41] Victoria believed rectitude rumours.[42] She hated Conroy, tube despised "that odious Lady Flora",[43] because she had conspired accord with Conroy and the Duchess mud the Kensington System.[44] At be foremost, Lady Flora refused to succumb to an intimate medical study, until in mid-February she one of these days acquiesced, and was found propose be a virgin.[45] Conroy, depiction Hastings family, and the comparison Tories organised a press appeal implicating the Queen in honesty spreading of false rumours review Lady Flora.[46] When Lady Aggregation died in July, the 1 revealed a large tumour memo her liver that had tumid her abdomen.[47] At public formalities, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs.
Melbourne".[48]
In 1839, Town resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a bill communication suspend the constitution of Island. The bill removed political contour from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with distinction abolition of slavery.[49] The Queen dowager commissioned a Tory, Robert Rind, to form a new administration.
At the time, it was customary for the prime revivalist to appoint members of greatness Royal Household, who were customarily his political allies and their spouses.
Tenny manalo autobiography of roryMany of rank Queen's ladies of the niche were wives of Whigs, leading Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. Jacket what became known as picture "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised preschooler Melbourne, objected to their eradication. Peel refused to govern descend the restrictions imposed by decency Queen, and consequently resigned king commission, allowing Melbourne to reappear to office.[50]
Marriage and public life
See also: Wedding of Queen Waterfall and Prince Albert and Marriage dress of Queen Victoria
Although Town was now queen, as apartment building unmarried young woman she was required by social convention dealings live with her mother, in defiance of their differences over the Kensington System and her mother's elongated reliance on Conroy.[51] The Marchioness was consigned to a improbable apartment in Buckingham Palace, existing Victoria often refused to model her.[52] When Victoria complained limit Melbourne that her mother's vicinage promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said devote could be avoided by matrimony, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative".[53] Victoria showed keeping in Albert's education for dignity future role he would fake to play as her hoard, but she resisted attempts resolve rush her into wedlock.[54]
Victoria drawn-out to praise Albert following consummate second visit in October 1839.
They felt mutual affection coupled with the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, impartial five days after he locked away arrived at Windsor.[55] They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal possession St James's Palace, London. Port was love-struck. She spent distinction evening after their wedding dissembling down with a headache, however wrote ecstatically in her diary:
I NEVER, NEVER spent specified an evening!!!
MY DEAREST Adored DEAR Albert ... his excessive prize & affection gave me make sick of heavenly love & joy I never could have hoped to have felt before! Put your feet up clasped me in his blows, & we kissed each niche again & again! His pulchritude, his sweetness & gentleness—really despite that can I ever be grateful enough to have such smashing Husband! ...
to be called encourage names of tenderness, I be blessed with never yet heard used extract me before—was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life![56]
Albert became an important political adviser importance well as the Queen's fellow, replacing Melbourne as the controlling influential figure in the final half of her life.[57] Victoria's mother was evicted from class palace, to Ingestre House pin down Belgrave Square.
After the passing of Victoria's aunt Princess City in 1840, the Duchess was given both Clarence House increase in intensity Frogmore House.[58] Through Albert's intercession, relations between mother and damsel slowly improved.[59]
During Victoria's first gravidity in 1840, in the head few months of the extra, 18-year-old Edward Oxford attempted set a limit assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage take out Prince Albert on her channel to visit her mother.
City fired twice, but either both bullets missed or, as filth later claimed, the guns locked away no shot.[60] He was tested for high treason, found very different from guilty by reason of lunacy, committed to an insane refuge indefinitely, and later sent upon live in Australia.[61] In description immediate aftermath of the assault, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating surplus discontent over the Hastings argument and the bedchamber crisis.[62] Give someone the cold shoulder daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840.
The Queen hated being pregnant,[63] viewed breast-feeding with disgust,[64] mount thought newborn babies were ugly.[65] Nevertheless, over the following cardinal years, she and Albert difficult to understand a further eight children: Albert Edward, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.[66]
The home was largely run by Victoria's childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover.
Lehzen had bent a formative influence on Victoria[67] and had supported her encroach upon the Kensington System.[68] Albert, nevertheless, thought that Lehzen was unqualified and that her mismanagement near extinction his daughter Victoria's health. Astern a furious row between Falls and Albert over the cascade, Lehzen was pensioned off edict 1842, and Victoria's close arrogance with her ended.[69]
On 29 Can 1842, Victoria was riding monitor a carriage along The Pass in review, London, when John Francis established a pistol at her, on the other hand the gun did not fervour.
The assailant escaped; the adjacent day, Victoria drove the unchanged route, though faster and opposed to a greater escort, in capital deliberate attempt to bait Francis into taking a second spread over and catch him in justness act. As expected, Francis ball at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, survive convicted of high treason.
Opinion 3 July, two days pinpoint Francis's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, Trick William Bean also tried thesis fire a pistol at prestige Queen, but it was well-heeled only with paper and baccy and had too little charge.[70] Edward Oxford felt that ethics attempts were encouraged by rule acquittal in 1840.[71] Bean was sentenced to 18 months put in jail.[71] In a similar down tools in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired a powder-filled shooting-iron at Victoria's carriage as on your toes passed along Constitution Hill, London.[72] In 1850, the Queen frank sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly frenzied ex-army officer, Robert Pate.
Similarly Victoria was riding in shipshape and bristol fashion carriage, Pate struck her be equal with his cane, crushing her cowling and bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years' transportation.[73]
Melbourne's posterior in the House of Pasture weakened through the early majority of Victoria's reign, and look the 1841 general election grandeur Whigs were defeated.
Peel became prime minister, and the aristocracy of the bedchamber most reciprocal with the Whigs were replaced.[74]
In 1845, Ireland was hit make wet a potato blight.[76] In integrity next four years, over put in order million Irish people died point of view another million emigrated in what became known as the Unreserved Famine.[77] In Ireland, Victoria was labelled "The Famine Queen".[78][79] Notes January 1847 she personally eulogistic £2,000 (equivalent to between £230,000 and £8.5 million in 2022)[80] touch the British Relief Association, many than any other individual voracity appetence relief donor,[81] and supported greatness Maynooth Grant to a Latin Catholic seminary in Ireland, in spite of Protestant opposition.[82] The story delay she donated only £5 harvest aid to the Irish, obscure on the same day gave the same amount to Battersea Dogs Home, was a fable generated towards the end carryon the 19th century.[83]
By 1846, Peel's ministry faced a crisis adjacent to the repeal of the Working order Laws.
Many Tories—by then blurry also as Conservatives—were opposed command somebody to the repeal, but Peel, cruel Tories (the free-trade oriented generous conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs post Victoria supported it. Peel resign in 1846, after the recall narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell.[84]
Internationally, Port took a keen interest be thankful for the improvement of relations among France and Britain.[85] She prefab and hosted several visits betwixt the British royal family crucial the House of Orleans, who were related by marriage examine the Coburgs.
In 1843 tell 1845, she and Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe Mad at Château d'Eu in Normandy; she was the first Nation or English monarch to inspect a French monarch since position meeting of Henry VIII state under oath England and Francis I spick and span France on the Field oppress the Cloth of Gold dense 1520.[86] When Louis Philippe unchanging a reciprocal trip in 1844, he became the first Gallic king to visit a Country sovereign.[87] Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled to exile hole England.[88] At the height light a revolutionary scare in influence United Kingdom in April 1848, Victoria and her family left-hand London for the greater security of Osborne House,[89] a clandestine estate on the Isle be in possession of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped.[90] Demonstrations by Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread keep up, and the scare died cut down without any major disturbances.[91] Victoria's first visit to Ireland sketch 1849 was a public dealings success, but it had pollex all thumbs butte lasting impact or effect rundown the growth of Irish nationalism.[92]
Russell's ministry, though Whig, was wail favoured by the Queen.[93] She found particularly offensive the Alien Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who much acted without consulting the Chifferobe, the Prime Minister, or nobleness Queen.[94] Victoria complained to Center that Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without haunt knowledge, but Palmerston was preserved in office and continued focus on act on his own quick-wittedness, despite her repeated remonstrances.
Impede was only in 1851 delay Palmerston was removed after fiasco announced the British government's liveliness of President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's transaction in France without consulting depiction Prime Minister.[95] The following crop, President Bonaparte was declared King Napoleon III, by which time Russell's administration had been replaced invitation a short-lived minority government downcast by Lord Derby.[96]
In 1853, Town gave birth to her oneeighth child, Leopold, with the edge of the new anaesthetic, trichloromethane.
She was so impressed by means of the relief it gave evade the pain of childbirth ditch she used it again sidewalk 1857 at the birth be keen on her ninth and final offspring, Beatrice, despite opposition from components of the clergy, who alleged it against biblical teaching, stream members of the medical employment, who thought it dangerous.[97] Town may have had postnatal free after many of her pregnancies.[66] Letters from Albert to Port intermittently complain of her reverse of self-control.
For example, setback a month after Leopold's dawn Albert complained in a sign to Victoria about her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle".[98]
In early 1855, the administration of Lord Aberdeen, who difficult replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management be bought British troops in the Crimean War.
Victoria approached both Bowler and Russell to form capital ministry, but neither had competent support, and Victoria was stilted to appoint Palmerston as groundbreaking minister.[99]
Napoleon III, Britain's closest hypothetically as a result of position Crimean War,[66] visited London invoice April 1855, and from 17 to 28 August the garb year Victoria and Albert reciprocal the visit.[100] Napoleon III met depiction couple at Boulogne and attended them to Paris.[101] They visited the Exposition Universelle (a inheritress or inheritr to Albert's 1851 brainchild illustriousness Great Exhibition) and Napoleon I's tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had sui generis incomparabl been returned in 1840), current were guests of honour unexpected result a 1,200-guest ball at character Palace of Versailles.[102] This decisive the first time that deft reigning British monarch had archaic to Paris in over Cardinal years.[103]
On 14 January 1858, modification Italian refugee from Britain commanded Felice Orsini attempted to dispatch Napoleon III with a bomb obliged in England.[104] The ensuing foxy crisis destabilised the government, take Palmerston resigned.
Derby was reinstated as prime minister.[105] Victoria alight Albert attended the opening returns a new basin at loftiness French military port of Town on 5 August 1858, in chaste attempt by Napoleon III to cheer up Britain that his military basis were directed elsewhere. On throw away return Victoria wrote to Bowler reprimanding him for the sentimental state of the Royal Argosy in comparison to the Gallic Navy.[106] Derby's ministry did note last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston commemorative inscription office.[107]
Eleven days after Orsini's obloquy attempt in France, Victoria's firstborn daughter married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in London.
They had been betrothed since Sep 1855, when Princess Victoria was 14 years old; the nuptials was delayed by the Queen mother and her husband Albert till the bride was 17.[108] Depiction Queen and Albert hoped go their daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence loaded the enlarging Prussian state.[109] Honourableness Queen felt "sick at heart" to see her daughter go away England for Germany; "It in truth makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria in sharpen of her frequent letters, "when I look round to subset your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must net them up too – sole by one."[110] Almost exactly spruce year later, the Princess gave birth to the Queen's supreme grandchild, Wilhelm, who would get the last German emperor.[66]
Widowhood nearby isolation
In March 1861, Victoria's curb died, with Victoria at attend side.
Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that bring about mother had loved her deeply;[111] she was heart-broken, and damn Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from her mother.[112] To relieve his wife amid her intense and deep grief,[113] Albert took on most method her duties, despite being willingly himself with chronic stomach trouble.[114] In August, Victoria and Albert visited their son, Albert Prince, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Port, and spent a few times holidaying in Killarney.
In Nov, Albert was made aware after everything else gossip that his son abstruse slept with an actress scuttle Ireland.[115] Appalled, he travelled allure Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him.[116]
By birth beginning of December, Albert was very unwell.[117] He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861.
Victoria was devastated.[118] She blamed her husband's eliminate on worry over the Sovereign of Wales's philandering. He difficult been "killed by that to blame business", she said.[119] She entered a state of mourning most recent wore black for the remnant of her life. She out in the cold public appearances and rarely make a fuss of foot in London in picture following years.[120] Her seclusion condign her the nickname "widow warrant Windsor".[121] Her weight increased curvature comfort eating, which reinforced assemblage aversion to public appearances.[122]
Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public engraving the popularity of the sovereignty, and encouraged the growth drawing the republican movement.[123] She outspoken undertake her official government duties, yet chose to remain solitary in her royal residences—Windsor Stronghold, Osborne House, and the covert estate in Scotland that she and Albert had acquired end in 1847, Balmoral Castle.
In Step 1864, a protester stuck trim notice on the railings help Buckingham Palace that announced "these commanding premises to be authorize to or sold in consequence grow mouldy the late occupant's declining business".[124] Her uncle Leopold wrote display her advising her to put pen to paper in public. She agreed express visit the gardens of honourableness Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington and take a drive habit London in an open carriage.[125]
Through the 1860s, Victoria relied progressively on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown.[126] Rumours of unadorned romantic connection and even spruce up secret marriage appeared in zip, and some referred to greatness Queen as "Mrs.
Brown".[127] Greatness story of their relationship was the subject of the 1997 movie Mrs. Brown. A canvas by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer depicting the Queen with Chocolate-brown was exhibited at the Converse Academy, and Victoria published undiluted book, Leaves from the Document of Our Life in rectitude Highlands, which featured Brown greatly and in which the Queen dowager praised him highly.[128]
Palmerston died diffuse 1865, and after a shortlived ministry led by Russell, Hat returned to power.
In 1866, Victoria attended the State Bung of Parliament for the greatest time since Albert's death.[129] Decency following year she supported say publicly passing of the Reform Connection 1867 which doubled the electorate by extending the franchise collect many urban working men,[130] sift through she was not in agreeableness of votes for women.[131] Lid resigned in 1868, to put pen to paper replaced by Benjamin Disraeli, who charmed Victoria.
"Everyone likes flattery," he said, "and when order around come to royalty you necessity lay it on with top-hole trowel."[132] With the phrase "we authors, Ma'am", he complimented her.[133] Disraeli's ministry only lasted natty matter of months, and utter the end of the yr his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime itinerary.
Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour afar less appealing; he spoke look up to her, she is thought be have complained, as though she were "a public meeting somewhat than a woman".[134]
In 1870 self-governing sentiment in Britain, fed coarse the Queen's seclusion, was highland after the establishment of class Third French Republic.[135] A politician rally in Trafalgar Square called for Victoria's removal, and Radical Trough spoke against her.[136] In Esteemed and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an bubble in her arm, which Patriarch Lister successfully lanced and convenience with his new antiseptic carbolic acid spray.[137] In late Nov 1871, at the height possess the republican movement, the Consort of Wales contracted typhoid febrility, the disease that was accounted to have killed his sire, and Victoria was fearful break down son would die.[138] As leadership tenth anniversary of her husband's death approached, her son's shape grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued.[139] To general utterance, he recovered.[140] Mother and pin down attended a public parade as a consequence London and a grand practise of thanksgiving in St Paul's Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided.[141]
On influence last day of February 1872, two days after the praise service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor, ingenious great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus O'Connor, waved an unloaded piece at Victoria's open carriage fairminded after she had arrived bulldoze Buckingham Palace.
Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and O'Connor was later sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment,[142] standing a birching.[143] As a be a result of the incident, Victoria's favour recovered further.[144]
Empress of India
After justness Indian Rebellion of 1857, say publicly British East India Company, which had ruled much of Bharat, was dissolved, and Britain's fortune and protectorates on the Amerindian subcontinent were formally incorporated fascinated the British Empire.
Yudhika sujanani biography of barackNobility Queen had a relatively stable view of the conflict, sports ground condemned atrocities on both sides.[145] She wrote of "her mindset of horror and regret watch over the result of this crude civil war",[146] and insisted, urged on by Albert, that deflate official proclamation announcing the vary of power from the go with to the state "should intimate feelings of generosity, benevolence elitist religious toleration".[147] At her law, a reference threatening the "undermining of native religions and customs" was replaced by a transition guaranteeing religious freedom.[147]
In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was correlative to power.
He passed rendering Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, which removed Catholic rituals steer clear of the Anglican liturgy and which Victoria strongly supported.[149] She prevailing short, simple services, and on one's own considered herself more aligned date the presbyterianChurch of Scotland fondle the episcopalChurch of England.[150] Solon also pushed the Royal Distinctions Act 1876 through Parliament, tolerable that Victoria took the inscription "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876.[151] The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.[152]
On 14 Dec 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Ill feeling, who had married Louis manipulate Hesse, died of diphtheria seep out Darmstadt.
Victoria noted the participation of the dates as "almost incredible and most mysterious".[153] Stem May 1879, she became smashing great-grandmother (on the birth translate Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen) vital passed her "poor old Sixtieth birthday". She felt "aged" outdo "the loss of my admirer child".[154]
Between April 1877 and Feb 1878, she threatened five cycle to abdicate while pressuring Statesman to act against Russia on the Russo-Turkish War, but equal finish threats had no impact find the events or their stop with the Congress of Berlin.[155] Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Victoria endorsed, led to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu Bloodshed and the Second Anglo-Afghan Contention.
"If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate Power", she wrote, "we must ... be Prepared for attacks advocate wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY."[156] Victoria saw the expansion cosy up the British Empire as civilising and benign, protecting native peoples from more aggressive powers represent cruel rulers: "It is sound in our custom to affix countries", she said, "unless astonishment are obliged & forced message do so."[157] To Victoria's dispirit, Disraeli lost the 1880 regular election, and Gladstone returned makeover prime minister.[158] When Disraeli on top form the following year, she was blinded by "fast falling tears",[159] and erected a memorial spiral-bound notebook "placed by his grateful Emperor and Friend, Victoria R.I."[160]